My Thoughts On Why I HATE Watching Sports On Apps

Streaming sports on app seems like a great idea. The capacity to watch the game on a phone, tablet, or computer when you are not at home for whatever reason should be a great thing. Over the last few weeks, I watched a few events via streaming, and I discovered that Fox Sports found a great way to fuck this up.

Whoever is in charge of the app streaming division at Fox Sports should be fired. After streaming three different events, two races, and the Super Bowl, I’ve realized that whoever is in charge over at Fox Sports either doesn’t understand the basics of advertising revenue, or if they do, they don’t care.

The first race I watched was the Rolex 24. I watched all 24 hours. Fox Sports Go had a setup where if you had a streaming service with Fox Sports, you could watch the whole race. Now this seems like a good idea, but after midnight, the commercials shifted to something called “Fox Sports Racing” which is little more than a Velocity rip off. It’s a channel that has auto racing, and car customization shows. I’m not going to watch it, but there are plenty of car guy and gals who might like to watch it. Here’s the problem: IT’S NOT AVAILABLE IN THE UNITED STATES!

Could someone please explain to me why in the world I had to sit through commercials for a product I can’t buy? Again, it isn’t my thing, but I would bet that there are people who would. To have to watch 3 or 4 of these promos every commercial break was enraging. It’s one thing to show commercials for stuff I don’t want, but can buy, but to force me to watch commercials for something I can’t buy is insulting. The thing is, as bad as this was, this wasn’t the worst.

Next, I watched the Super Bowl in its entirety on the NFL Mobile app. Now I get that while there are plenty of national commercials, but if you are going to put something in place of them on an app, could you pick more than two TV show promos? Every commercial break there was one promo for Empire, or 24. Apparently Fox doesn’t have any other television shows that they felt should be promoted during the biggest television show of the year. Watching the same two promos was enraging. Rather than alternating the two, Fox would play the Empire one over, and over, occasionally replacing it with the 24 promo. This was actually not as bad as what happened next.

On the way home on Amtrak, I was attempting to watch the NHRA Winternationals, and I had to turn it off. The Fox Sports Go app should be an easy thing to do. Just show the national telecast, with local commercials. This generates ad revenue, and keeps sponsors happy. Leave it to Fox to mess this up in the most idiotic way possible. Instead of showing said commercials, for whatever reason, the app would replace them with local Fox promos.

Again, why would you screw over advertisers in order to promote local programming? This makes no sense, it screws over and enrages sponsors, and fans hate it. It’s so nonsensical, it’s mind boggling! Who at Fox thought this was a good idea? Why was this approved? If the plan was to destroy the Fox Sports Go app, then it’s going well. I’m NEVER watching any Fox Sports programming on the Fox Sports Go app again EVER! I hope that whoever is in charge over at Fox Sports gets fired.